Motivating Kids (13)

Affirmations are a good way to encourage your kids to move forward. Instead of telling them you do not want them to give up, you give them an affirmation that tells them not to give up.

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I think I have written about school uniform and its (negative) educational value many times, yet somehow, I do not have the feeling I have written enough. I hope you can read my frustration with this topic in my sarcasm, because I am not happy at all.

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Kids are Like Mice

Yesterday, during a session with two of my parenting clients, they asked me again, “Why do you send your kids to school?” My answer was “Because kids are like mice – they need friends”. Research on mice and relationship has found that mice that spent their time with other mice live longer – as a matter a fact, twice as long – than mice who lived on their own. Happy kids, just like happy mice, need company and this is the main reason for sending kids to school.

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Two’s Company, Three’s a Crowd: See What Happens

There’s a famous saying “Two’s company, but three’s a crowd”. When you’re a parent, and you want to help your kids with their social life, it’s a good one to remember. Other odd numbers of kids are tougher than even, but three can get downright nasty.

Ronit and I grew up in small places, where life was fairly simply and people were very friendly. So whatever we did, we did with our friends. We rode our bikes with them, played sports with them, and splashed with them at the pool or in the puddles. We swung with them at the playground and very often invented new and exciting games and adventures with them.

So it’s only natural for us to want our kids to have friends too and enjoy similar warmth to what we felt as kids. We want them to develop their social skills and imagination (come on, say it with me “instead of spending all their spare time in front of the computer or the TV”).

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Research Says: Friends Improve Sibling Relationships

Family Matters says: your attitude can improve them even more.

In psychological studies, the age gap between siblings is very important and is used to explain many behaviors and relationships. Can you imagine yourself lying on the shrink’s sofa and complaining about your brother who came into your life too early and took all the attention away from you?

In a research published by the Journal of Family Psychology, Dr. Laurie Kramer, professor of applied family studies at the University of Illinois, followed 28 sibling pairs from the age of 4 to adolescence and found that “a child’s socialization with friends before the arrival of a sibling can predict a more positive relationship between the siblings”.

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Social Identity

Today, let’s explore how we form our social identity and how it can contribute to our self-esteem.

Psychologists claim that we have a social identity. From the moment kids see themselves as part of a family, they start forming their social identity. Our self-esteem, which is what we think about ourselves, is greatly influenced by the groups we associate ourselves with and by what they think and do. For that matter, our family is our first social group.

If you want to understand the influence of the groups on our life, put yourself at the center of a circle and draw bigger and bigger circles around you for your family, friend, work colleagues, acquaintances and so on. The closest the circle to you, the more influence you allow this group to have on your life.

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Should my child repeat a year at school or not?

This question usually comes up after a teacher tells a child’s parents that the child is not keeping up with their schoolwork. Often, the teacher actually suggests that the child repeat a year.

However, although the indication given is academic, the problem is most often emotional.

If the reason for the child’s poor performance is academic, I believe there is no point repeating a year. If there is a real difficulty, time is not the cure!

It is better to offer special support to the child during and after school, or in extreme cases, in a special school.

However…

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Should I Choose a Single-sex School for My Child?

The single-sex school originated during the 18th century, when rich families sent their sons to “special” schools. Only later, in the 19th century, when the awareness of the value of education increased, were girls also sent to study. Single-sex schools were very popular in England and now also in Australia.

Today, the single-sex schools are popular among religious populations and even more during high school.

Supporters of single-sex schools believe they help kids concentrate on their academic work and avoid the sexual distractions of adolescence.

Critics believe that some social skills relating to the opposite sex reaches its peak development during teenage and that if teens do not have enough practice, this limit their social skills and their ability to relate later on.

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Networking for Kids

These days, networking is synonymous with success. Networking is also the key to a good social life.

No matter how big our house is, how colourful our car is, how powerful our computers are or how many academic degrees we have, it is the ability to establish good relationships with our family, our friends, our customers, our colleagues and, perhaps more than anything else, with people we do not know, that determines our success in life.

At school, we get the idea that the more knowledge we gain, the more successful we will be in life. This intellectual focus on life is still practiced in many places around the world.

In fact, “It’s not WHAT you know, it’s WHO you know”.

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Kids and Humor

Kids laugh a lot but not everything is funny for them. Watching them can teach us a lot about the complication required to understand humor. The younger the kids, the clumsier they are at telling jokes, and many of them do not think jokes are funny at all.

In the early years, kids laugh at things that do not seem funny at all to the adults. At the age of 6 or 7, kids discover humor when they start to understand the double meaning of words. Only at that stage, when their language develops enough, do they have the capacity to shift from one verbal meaning to the other.

This understanding is so important that they can never get to the punch line without it.

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